Comparison

Ancient Games vs Frontier Painter

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Ancient Games

Explore and play a collection of ancient board games brought back to life with modern app design. Enjoy offline and online play, collect customizable game pieces, and tackle fun challenges. Save progress across all games with cloud saves.

Highlights
  • Play multiple ancient games in one app
  • Offline and online multiplayer
  • AI, friend, and random player matches
  • Collectible game pieces and boards
  • Challenges with rule variants
  • Free cloud saves across games
Features
Read full description

/!\ If you play more than one of my Ancient Games, I suggest you delete the individual apps and install this one. It will allow you to play them all and save disk storage. /!\ -Languages : English, French, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Spanish, German, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, Turkish. The past is full of fascinating games that haves been mostly forgotten. The Ancient Games collection aims to resurrect them as a meticulously crafted mix between what a player wants from an historical game and what he/she expects of a modern application. Features : -Play against the IA, friends and random players from around the world (Coming back soon) -Play Online & Offline. -Multiple collectibles : boards, game pieces, dice, nameplates, etc. -Challenges (Fun rule variants) -Free cloudsave across the collection : your progress in one game is available in all the others. -Much more features to come! Currently, the collection is comprised of four games : the Royal Game of Ur, Senet, XII Scripta and Puluc, but 40 games are in the works! You can see the roadmap here : https://trello.com/b/QYtOXwJi/ancient-games-roadmap Each game will be added to the Ancient Games app and will have its own individual app as well. The privacy policy has been updated in accordance to the latest data protection laws.

About

Frontier Painter

Features
Read full description

You're a painter aboard a generation ship, woken early by a software bug. The ship's reality is rendered in software — and it's coming apart. Rails overheat, circuits die, doors seal shut. You can't fix code, but you can paint. Your palette isn't colors. It's physics. PAINT PROPERTIES, NOT PIGMENT Every broken surface shows a symptom — "overheated", "dead circuit", "seized". Work out which property repairs it: COLD, CONDUCTIVE, or MAGNETIC. Walk up, press PAINT, and trace the property's glyph with your finger. Paint an overheated rail cold and it frosts into a handhold you can climb along. Paint a dead conduit conductive and the power comes back on. MOVE LIKE AN ASTRONAUT • Drift and thrust through zero gravity. • Grab rails and pull yourself hand over hand. • Switch on mag boots and walk on anything — floor, walls, ceiling. Walk off an edge and the wall becomes your floor. • Jump with boots on and let magnetism pull you to the nearest surface. LEARN AS YOU GO A short tutorial teaches one move per room, with clear prompts and glowing beacons — then the puzzles begin. Some surfaces are blocked by others: right property, right place, right order. • Twin-stick touch controls designed for iPhone and iPad • Original generative ambient soundtrack • Your progress is saved automatically • No ads, no accounts, no tracking — plays fully offline

Screenshots

Ancient Games3 screens
Frontier Painter4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Frontier Painter at none against Ancient Games's 10. Frontier Painter also leads on ads (none vs shown). Ancient Games's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). On price and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Ancient Games sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Frontier Painter asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Ancient Games versus Frontier Painter: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAncient GamesFrontier Painter
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (287 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews78.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings287 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks—
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size212 MB7 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSullivan BousiniereDan Newcome

Bugs and requests

Ancient Games

Reported bugs

11 issues
  • Game freezes after match completion
  • Screen goes dark and becomes unresponsive post-game
  • Ad removal purchase only lasts one game
  • Paid ad removal still shows advertisements
  • Game continues playing after player wins
Show 6 more
  • Cannot make legal moves despite availability
  • XII Scripta piece stacking rules not enforced correctly
  • Purchased board content inaccessible due to subscription requirement
  • Report button links to Mail app instead of App Store
  • Text rendering issues making content hard to read
  • Online play frequently unavailable or non-functional

Requested features

10 requests
  • Two-player local multiplayer mode
  • Friends list and challenge system
  • Leaderboards and ranking system
  • Win/loss statistics and game history tracking
  • Ability to play offline while waiting for online opponents
Show 5 more
  • Permanent one-time purchase option instead of subscription
  • More ancient games added to collection
  • Harder difficulty levels beyond current maximum
  • Better XP progression for unlocking boards
  • Improved customer support contact options

Frontier Painter

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

9 purchases

Ancient Games

Subscriptions1
  • AG+$3.991 Month
One-time8
  • Ancient Artifact$0.99
  • Purchase Game Edition2 variants$1.99
  • Dawn of Civilization DLC$2.99
Show 5 more
  • Purchase Game Edition$2.99
  • Skeleton Key$2.99
  • Purchase Game Edition$3.99
  • Purchase Game Edition$10.99
  • Royal Pass$12.99
None

Frontier Painter

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Ancient Games free?
Ancient Games is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Frontier Painter free?
Frontier Painter is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Ancient Games or Frontier Painter have ads?
Ancient Games shows ads; Frontier Painter does not.

Other comparisons